British Journal of Educational Technology
doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.01048.x
Vol 41 No 6 2010
992–1002
Online role-play environments for higher education
_1048
992..1002
Carol Russell and John Shepherd
Dr Carol Russell is a learning and teaching fellow in the Faculty of Engineering at University of New South Wales
(UNSW). She has worked in various university educational development roles since 1988, and gained her PhD in
2008 on the topic of e-learning adoption in campus universities. Dr John Shepherd is a senior lecturer in the School
of Computer Science and Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering at UNSW. In 1989, while at University of
Melbourne, he set up the original online Middle East Politics Simulation and has maintained an active interest in
environments for online role-plays ever since. Address for correspondence: Dr Carol Russell, Faculty of Engineering,
The University of New South Wales, UNSW Sydney 2052, Australia
Abstract
As online environments and tools have evolved over the last 15–20 years, their use for
role-based learning has expanded. This analysis draws on work for an Australian
project that has been sharing and developing knowledge about the use of online
role-plays in higher education. We describe the learning needs that online role-play
can meet, and give examples of solutions—some using custom-built software
and some using standard online learning environments. We use these examples to
develop a framework for evaluating how new technologies can support role-based
learning activities in universities, taking into account the needs of both learners and
teachers.
Introduction
Role-play is a form of experiential learning where students adopt different personas and work
through a given scenario together, interacting in their assumed roles. Role-play is particularly
effective for learning about complex social/human systems. In online environments, which are
growing in number, diversity and availability, students can interact anonymously, in role. The
EnROLE (Encouraging Role-based Online Learning Environments) project (Wills et al, 2009)
brought together experience of online role-play designs, environments and tools going back
to 1990.
In universities, online role-play learning is part of a complex adaptive system. Institutional and
disciplinary contexts influence the academic organising processes by which new forms of learning activity and new web-based learning technologies develop and spread (Russell, 2009)—see
Figure 1.
Project EnROLE uses the following specific definition of online role-play:
‘Online (and blended) role-plays are designed to increase understanding of real life human interaction and
dynamics. Participants:
• assume a role in someone else’s shoes or in someone else’s situation;
• to do authentic tasks in an authentic context;
• involving substantial in-role human interaction such as collaboration, negotiation, debate.
Interaction between roles is substantially in an online environment. Learning outcomes are assessable and
generate opportunities for student reflection’. (Wills et al, 2009)
© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford
OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Online role-play environments
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Figure 1: Online role-play environments as part of a complex adaptive system based on Russell (2009)
In this paper, we focus on the web-based tools used for online role-play learning in universities
and identify some key interdependencies between technologies and their effectiveness for this type
of experiential learning.
The educational context
Role-play learning takes the student through stages in an experiential learning cycle (Kolb,
1984)—action, experience, reflection, theory. However, the Kolb cycle describes individual learning and implies conscious development of abstract concepts. Although conscious theorising is
part of university education, it does not always happen in professional practice.
For the reflective practitioner (Schön, 1983), professional learning is acquired implicitly as well as
explicitly. Implicit learning relies on a stance of reflective imitation, and temporary suspension of
disbelief, rather than deliberate learning of concepts. Role-plays are ideal for encouraging this
type of complex holistic social learning experience. Although some professional skills learned in
this way could remain as tacit knowledge, academic assessment of learning in universities
requires conscious reflection, analysis and explicit communication of what has been learnt.
So, two fundamental design criteria for online role-play platforms in universities are to:
1. create a space for complex social learning;
2. support explicit reflection and theorising as part of the role-play activity.
Teaching, facilitation and scaffolding
Learning from experience can be risky, and another advantage of role-play over reality is that the
students can learn in a supported environment before they launch themselves into deep professional waters. This brings in three more design parameters.
3. How a teacher or facilitator guides the process and sets boundaries
Although we are focusing on technology, facilitation also needs to be part of the technological
design. For example, Salmon (2000) suggests that any online learning activity will require extra
facilitation in the earlier stages of access and socialisation.
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Figure 2: Scaffolding in the ideal role-play environment: keeping students in the ‘flow zone’
4. How the technological environment pre-structures the learning experience
Synchronous and asynchronous communication tools, shared online work spaces for groups,
resource banks to explore further information about a problem, all scaffold different types of
cognitive process (McLoughlin & Luca, 2002).
5. Degree of independent learning expected
At one extreme, the students might be launched into a substantial scenario with large amounts
of unstructured information and left to find their own way through the situation, in role. At the
other extreme, the students might be given small parts of a problem situation to deal with, one at
a time, each supported by highly specific resources, as they build confidence and skill. The online
environment and tools can shape the granularity of the resources and support, which should
match the task structure (McLoughlin, 2002). The ideal role-play learning environment would
keep most of the participants in their ‘flow zone’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992) by building skills and
growing challenges together (Figure 2)—neither boring them with routine skill building so that
they become disengaged, nor giving them challenges they cannot cope with so that they become
overanxious and stop learning.
Games, simulations and role-plays
Because games, simulations and role-plays can all be used for experiential learning, it is useful to
clarify the similarities and differences.
Games
A game is a constructed situation in which players make efforts to win within defined rules.
Academic games can be designed to develop particular skills, such as information recall, learning
concepts or rules and solving problems (Gredler, 1992). Games can help motivate and engage
students in developing skills by presenting artificial challenges that keep them in the flow zone.
Simulations
Simulations differ from games in that the former aim to model how a complex reality functions,
and present participants with a realistic problem to solve (Gredler, 1992).
Computer simulations have been used for learning since the 1970s, when the time to receive the
simulation response could be several weeks. In the 21st century, simulations and games can
© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta.
Online role-play environments
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include much more complexity, speed of response and realism. But they do not necessarily
support online role-based learning, as defined previously. In some management games, participants play roles and interact with each other, but the dynamics of their interaction depends
mainly on the rules and modelling built into the simulation.
Role-play
In a role-play, learning takes place through identification with a character in a social context. This
means that, instead of providing ready-made characters in detail, as with 3D avatars in virtual
worlds, it is better to leave room for the learners’ own imaginative elaborations so that they are
intellectually and emotionally active in the construction of their roles (Linser & Ip, 2005).
Gredler (1992) divides simulations into two main categories:
• Tactical decision simulations focus on analysing data and on achieving particular outcomes from
the decisions based on that analysis. The learning outcomes are capabilities in data selection,
organisation, interpretation and management.
• Social process simulations focus on interactions among people and how their beliefs, assumptions, goals and actions influence decisions. The learning outcomes are the ability to work in
social systems, to build insight or empathy or to develop communication skills.
Although Gredler does not include role-plays in either of those categories, social process simulations provide the same advantages that van-Ments ascribes to role-play: ‘It is an excellent way of
developing interpersonal and communication skills and provides highly motivating and memorable lessons ... in any area where human interaction is paramount’ (van-Ments, 1989, p. 37).
Online role-play simulations, as defined in Project EnROLE, include social process simulations, but
not tactical decision simulations. This is important for the selection of online tools and environments for role-play because it implies providing support for realistically complex interaction
between the roles, rather than building sophisticated models that generate experiences (data) for
the student to analyse.
Some massively multiplayer online role-playing games have potential for educational simulations and ‘serious’ gaming (De Freitas & Griffiths, 2007). They can also be used as role-play
environments, if there is sufficient scope for imaginative role construction, collaboration, negotiation and debate.
Rather than propose strict definitional boundaries, we therefore suggest that there is a continuum, in which online role-play may involve a simulated problem context and also analysis of
related data, but where the focus of learning is on how the roles interact in dealing with the
problem. Wills (in Wills et al, 2009, p. 10) draws on several potential role-play examples in the UK
to create a triad framework (Figure 3) in which to position this emerging type of simulation
alongside the many other role-based learning environments that Project EnROLE has
catalogued.
Role-play requirements
For role-plays, the online environments and tools need to support:
• direct social interaction among participants (rather than interaction with, or mediated by, a
computer model);
• student involvement in building or elaborating the roles they are to assume (rather than having
these pre-programmed in detail);
• student exploration of a complex scenario that requires resolution through discussion, debate
and negotiation among roles with differing points of view.
Role-play learning also requires student debriefing and reflection. Where the online environment
is used in blended mode and primarily to support anonymity in role, the debriefing, reflection and
© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta.
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Figure 3: Simulation and role-play continuum (Wills et al, 2009)
theorising can take place face-to-face. Students can also articulate in written work their individual theorising on the role-play experience. However, the online environment can support
monitoring, recording and analysis of actions (Salmon, 2001) in a much more detailed way than
is usually possible in a face-to-face role-play.
Role-play environments in practice
The real examples of online role-plays logged by Project EnROLE use a variety of environments
and tools, some of which evolved through a complex iterative process. Before the advent of online
learning management systems (LMS) and tools, custom-built environments were the only option.
Customised environments
Online role-play environment (ORE)
ORE arose from collaboration between a politics lecturer and a computer science lecturer in 1990
in the University of Melbourne and since then has grown to support several other role-plays
(Vincent & Shepherd, 1998). The environment was originally set up to develop students’ appreciation of the political complexities underlying news reports on relations between Middle Eastern
countries and the US. Students take on the roles of politicians and journalists in various countries
and send public and private communications to the other roles. Early version of the system were
called MEPS, short for “Middle East Role-play Simulation”.
Version 1 (1989): Emails (representing political communiqués, press releases and published
articles) were all sent to a central address and redirected manually.
Version 2 (1990–97): A mail alias system replaced manual email redirection, mapping role
addresses to student email accounts. However, students still had to log in to an online account
with their own IDs.
Version 3 1998 to present: A web application was written to manage the functionality for the
simulation. The current system has tools to support role development and preparation activity in
groups, in-role communiqués (by email to other roles) and public announcements to all roles
© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta.
Online role-play environments
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(simulating press coverage). However, there is no threaded asynchronous discussion, no embedded support for debriefing and no web interface for setting up roles and scenarios.
Version 4 will address some of these deficiencies. However, there are now several other environments for online role-play developers to choose from. The current version is informally managed
and is available for use, from a server in University of New South Wales, on request.
Fablusi—generic role-play environment
Fablusi is a generic role-play environment developed in the mid-1990s after some experience with
early online role-plays. It has a built-in design process and allows for multiple simulations. Its
communication tools include forums (spaces) to provide asynchronous broadcast within small
groups. Pre-allocation of students to roles and student selection of roles are both possible. Fablusi
is run as an independent commercial educational service.
Project ICONS
ICONS (International Communication and Negotiation Simulations) runs from the University of
Maryland in the USA. It is a custom-built online environment that includes tools for synchronous
and asynchronous communication, collaboration in groups, team voting and support for out-ofrole debriefing. Many of the examples listed on the website (http://www.icons.umd.edu/
highered/home) for university-level study are associated with political contexts and are available
for reuse, complete with resources. The project charges for use of these simulations, per
student user.
Simulation builder
Academics in the University of Western Australia have an internal service to help them design
and set up online role-plays, using an in-house Simulation Builder. Like ORE, this requires educational technologists or programmers to set up the simulations, and is not designed for academics
to use directly to set up their own role-play activities.
SIMPLE
The University of Strathclyde, with external project funding and in collaboration with other UK
universities, has developed an open source SIMulated Professional Learning Environment
(SIMPLE)—with built-in resources to create a virtual town and a virtual office. The environment
supports group and individual learning activities, and assessment. (Hughes, Gould, McKellar,
Maharg & Nicol, 2008).
Standard LMS
An increasing number of online role-plays are being built using standard LMS such as BlackBoard
and Moodle. For university lecturers, the institutional LMS is free, accessible to all staff and
students, and usually integrated with student and staff administration systems. The use of standard online environments and tools means that role-play designs transfer easily between institutions and disciplines, as shown by the two Australian examples illustrated in Figure 4.
Mekong e-Sim
The Mekong e-Sim role-play consists of a realistic and highly structured scenario—a proposed
development in the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia in the context of a public inquiry. A
series of unfolding events is simulated using conditional and timed release of materials. The
students are required to interact with each other, in role, to deal with the scenario as it develops.
The whole simulation runs on a standard LMS, with student login in role. However, in some
institutions, there have been administrative barriers to setting up these role-based login IDs.
Round table
The Round Table role-play has a simple format, in which professional stakeholders meet in an
online asynchronous discussion forum representing a face-to-face meeting. The participants each
© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta.
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Middle East
Politics
Simulation
(1900–)
Round Table
Discussion:
Physical
Geography
Macquarie
Mekong e-Sim
Adelaide
(2001–)
Dental Amalgam
e-Sim
Adelaide
Big Paper b-Sim
UNSW
(2002–)
GEAP
Interactive
Adelaide
Mediation
Fishbowl
RMIT
(2002–)
Round Table
Discussion:
Ethics of
Pharmacology
Sydney
(2006–)
Global e-Sim
Sydney
Public Planning
Enquiry
Macquarie
Pacifica
Sydney
(2008–)
Ha Long Bay e-Sim
Macquarie
(2004–)
Turning Point e-Sim
UNSW
(2007–)
Round Table
Discussion:Pain
Management
Sydney
(2005–)
Beyond Oil
UNSW
(2009–)
Buyat Bay Mine
Planning Focus
UNSW
(2009–)
Figure 4: Mekong e-Sim and Round Table role-play ‘family trees’ (Wills et al, 2009)
present a prepared statement or position to the meeting, and then exchange questions and
answers. One of the descendents of this model is a joint role-play for two postgraduate courses, in
Mining Engineering and Public Health. Each course already has its own online course in the
institutional LMS and log in to a separate Moodle environment in role.
Virtual Reality (VR) and virtual worlds
UNSW has developed an immersive (3D surround vision and sound) simulation of mining environments (Stothard, Galvin & Fowler, 2004) for training miners about safety protocols rather
than role-plays. Immersive virtual worlds (IVWs) such as Second Life seem to offer a similar,
although less physically immersive environment, where students might experience interactions
in role through an avatar (Jamaludin, Ho & Chee, 2007).
Virtual worlds are not yet a familiar tool for most academics, and it is not clear how their use for
role-play might best be integrated with other university systems. One possible strategy might be
to use the open source Second Life engine to create a reusable virtual world for role-plays—just as
the SIMPLE project has created a virtual town and office. This could be added to and developed
over time, and customised for links to institutional administrative systems. The SLOODLE project,
for example, is building links between Second Life and Moodle (Livingstone, Kemp & Edgar,
2008)—a potential environment for role-play learning in virtual worlds, integrated with other
university online learning activities, courses and student administration systems.
Discussion
The examples above show how the technology chosen to support online role-play learning is part
of an adaptive system that includes not only the technological environment (tools available) but
also the university learning context (discipline, level, organisational support and funding)
(Figure 5).
The development of the ORE environment shows three very different underlying technologies
supporting the same learning activity over many years. Apart from an initial grant to pay for
© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta.
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Figure 5: Role-play use and the available tools and environments for higher education (HE) disciplines
manual email redirection, ORE received no direct funding. Other customised environments for
online role-play have had different funding models—national grants, institution-based funding
and private funding—leading to different payment regimes for university users. What they have
in common is a need either for effort and expertise to set them up, or for payment for use.
Off-the-shelf tools are becoming better able to support online role-play learning activities,
without the need for specialist expertise. Most of our examples use Web 1.0 tools. A few are
beginning to use social networking tools, and there is potential for using VR or immersive 3D
virtual worlds.
Although newer environments, such as virtual worlds, seem immersive, it is not yet clear
whether this helps or hinders student engagement with learning from the role. Linser and Ip
(2005) suggest that ready-made realism detracts from students’ active involvement in filling out
their roles. One study showed that students who designed role-play simulations for their peers
learnt more than those who performed the role-plays—confirming the ‘listen and forget, see
and remember, do and understand’ adage (Druckman & Ebner, 2008). Yet there is no reason
why students cannot build and elaborate on roles in IVWs—as many already do in online
games.
In summary, from the learning perspective, new methods of providing students with an online
environment in which they are present only in role have advantages, especially if students can
contribute to the role description.
From the teaching perspective, there are still some barriers. Anonymity is hampered by institutional systems where student online access is locked into automated enrolment administration.
For larger student groups, automation of the role allocation and login process would be essential,
and this requires institutional investment. There are set-up costs for introducing such change,
© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta.
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and running costs in terms of staff time. Some of the customised environments have had considerable investment and/or require continued expert support of a type that has often not been
available in Australian universities (Uys, Buchan & Ward, 2006). However, there are now many
examples where online role-play uses established tools and builds on existing designs, with
minimal investment and support.
We suggest that the following criteria might be applied to newer types of online environment to
assess their usefulness as spaces for online role-play learning, with the weighting of each criterion
depending on the specific learning context.
Learning
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
immersion/authenticity: environment allows for activity in role without external distractions
engagement with role: environment provides ways for student to build and inhabit roles
anonymity: environment hides real identities of other players during role-play
synchronous communication: chat, etc
asynchronous communication: email, online discussion forums, etc
group reflection: blogs, wikis, group discussion forums
individual reflection: personal blogs, journals
debriefing out of role: dual online identities (eg, separate authentication for role-plays)
resources: material supporting role-play, eg, scenario, role briefs, background documents.
Teaching
•
•
•
•
•
•
staff accessibility: available and familiar to all staff and supported institutionally
student accessibility: available and familiar to students
low role-play set-up costs/effort: few specialist skills and little time/cost to create each role-play
low role-play running costs: routine activity management tasks minimised/automated
activity tracking: tools for facilitators to monitor player actions
activity structuring: tools for facilitators to shape and direct information for and communication among roles, eg, conditional release, threaded discussions, group tools.
Conclusions
Table 1 summarises our analysis and puts forward some tentative judgements on each environment type, based on the examples we have described. These criteria can be used to evaluate new
environments and tools for role-based learning.
Instead of focusing on the potential of the newest environments, we developed this framework by
analysing existing examples collected through Project EnROLE. The growth of web-based environments and tools for role-play learning in universities has entailed complex interaction
between disciplinary learning needs, the technologies available and academic communities. The
same underlying processes will be needed for effective use of newer technologies for online
role-play—Web 2.0 tools, virtual worlds and whatever else comes along in the next 20 years.
As free web-based environments become more sophisticated, the affordances of online tools will
become less important than how they are used. For example, one role-play used an asynchronous
discussion forum for a synchronous role-play, to take advantage of the threading and tracking
functions (Cornelius, Gordon & Harris, 2009). Environments such as Second Life and Twitter offer
new possibilities for mixing synchronous and asynchronous interaction.
Not only is the range of online communication tools (synchronous and asynchronous, verbal and
visual) expanding, but there are more tools for end-user customisation of virtual environments.
So, before long, the distinction between customised online role-play environments and standard
LMS environments could become irrelevant.
© 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta.
Online role-play environments
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Table 1: Criteria for online role-play environments
Environments
Role-play criteria
Learning
Immersion/authenticity
Engagement with role
Anonymity
Synchronous comm.
Asynchronous comm.
Group reflection
Individual reflection
Debriefing out of role
Resources
Teaching
Staff accessibility
Student accessibility
Low set-up costs
Low running costs
Activity tracking
Activity structuring
Classroom
Email
Custom web
applications
Standard
LMS tools
Web 2.0
Virtual
worlds
X
✓
X
✓
X
✓
✓
✓
✓
X
✓
✓
X
✓
X
X
X
X
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
?
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
?
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
?
✓
✓
✓
✓
?
?
✓
✓
✓
✓
X
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
X
✓
X
✓
✓
?
?
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
?
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
?
?
?
?
?
?
✓ We know of cases where an environment of this type supports the criterion.
? Environment may or may not support the criterion.
X Environment makes it difficult or impossible to meet this criterion.
Currently, some of the teaching criteria we have identified, such as staff accessibility and time/
costs, are still in question. Even the basic function of anonymity, a well-established advantage of
online environments, may be hampered by administrative rather than pedagogical or technical
constraints. But if academic staff and university systems become as comfortable with virtual
worlds as they currently are with emails, there is no reason why newer technologies cannot meet
all of the learning and teaching criteria we have identified, especially active engagement of
students in building their own roles.
Acknowledgements
Both authors were team members in Project EnROLE (2007–09), which was funded by the
Australian Learning and Teaching Council. This paper draws on discussions with other members
of the EnROLE project team. In particular, the project leader, Prof. Sandra Wills, provided helpful
comments on drafts. We also acknowledge the late Andrew Vincent, who pioneered the Middle
East Politics simulation that led to the ORE platform.
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